Tag: labor

The Story About Equal Pay Day That You Wont Hear About

Today, April 2nd, 2019 is Equal Pay Day and I wanted to share with you something about my business that you probably have never heard about. I have read no less than a half-dozen articles today about the fact that women make eighty cents to every dollar a man makes. http://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/2019/04/02/equal-pay-day-2019-how-to-close-the-wage-gap-for-good/

As Business Manager of the Boston Plumbers Union, and a member for over thirty years, I have never known of a woman member that did not get paid what their male counterparts made.

We all went through an apprenticeship together, worked our way up through the business together, became duly licensed by the state together. All the way through apprenticeship and on to becoming a journeyman there was pay parity. Yes, it’s because we belong to a union.

Over those thirty plus years the ranks of women have continued to grow especially over the past ten years. Yes, the pay structure has been around in a male dominated industry for many years but as women have become more and more commonplace in the industry there was never any thought to pay women anything less than what the contract provided or what the men made.

At a recent meeting with some of the women of Local 12 we talked about many issues but the one issue that never came up is pay equity. I was compelled to write this because there is IMG_6748 ladiesno media outlet that seems to want to let anyone know that parts of the labor movement is paying dividends for all working people.

Needless to say that the Building Trades can be a misunderstood entity at times, we have always tried our best to be sure that its equal pay for equal work. The reasoning being, that we all came into this together trained and moved up together. Pretty basic concept I think.

So on this years Equal Pay Day, for those that find this thing kind of important, not only do the Union Plumbers in the Boston area make the same pay so do all of our counterparts throughout the rest of the Boston Building Trades.

For that, I’m proud.

 

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Plumbing is Great Industry in MA

I just left the annual Massachusetts PHCC trade show in Marlboro MA. This show continues to showcase what a great industry we have here. Plumbers and apprentices from across the state come to interact with the suppliers of basically anything that has to do with the business.

This year we, Plumbers Local 12 was the proud sponsor of the very popular code seminar put on by the Massachusetts State Plumbing Board. At least 700 people filled the conference room to exchange ideas, concerns, and to get clarification on a host of issues. Chairman Paul Kennedy did a great job answering or getting the right person to answer whatever the audience timg_2980hrew at them

The important take away is the fact that a strong license and a strong code is the key to keeping the plumbing industry here a great business not only for the license holders but the consumers as well.

Congratulations to all at the MAPHCC on another great show.

 

 

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Out With The Old

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On May 13th Plumbers Local 12 in Boston graduated their first apprentice class in two years. These new journeyman plumbers have raised the bar for what an apprentice class should be.

After five years of attending a program that started out at night and finished as a day program they sang the praises of their training. They also represented the changes that Local 12 has been championing. There were commercial, residential, and service apprentices graduating together.

Also in this class were three apprentices that competed in national apprentice competitions. One in Connecticut, one in Ann Arbor, Michigan,and one in Hollywood, Florida. These apprentices were so inclined to participate because of their confidence in the training they received at Local 12s training facility by our instructors.

One of the most important jobs that the plumbers union has is to provide the best trained apprentices and plumbers the industry has to offer. There is nothing else like this in regard to training in Massachusetts. Now with a special attention to all wood frame construction with 12R we are training to all aspects of the residential industry. Not that we weren’t before before but we are in it to win it.

We also have our focus on service as well. All apprentices take part in service training but the ones actually doing it train with the journeyman as well. That along with quarterly in service training with the vendors of the industry puts us head and shoulders above everyone else.

The day school also brought some unsolicited comments from the class. Class President Danny Palimeri spoke about how their personal relationships changed after they went to day school. “When we started at night we were acquaintances but once we started day school we all became very close.” For me that compliment was confirmation that day school is the way to go. “We were supportive of each other to make sure that everyone was getting whatever the teachers threw at us” said Danny.

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Class President Danny Palimeri addresses over 200 people that attended the graduation at Venezia Restaurant in Dorchester, MA. 

Some that read this may not appreciate that trade training is that important, but when you put in five years and over eleven hundred hours of training this group of new journeymen will forever consider themselves Local 12 Class of 2016! Congratulations!

 

 

 

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You Won’t Read About This!

Dateline 5/13/2016

Location IBEW 103 Union Hall Boston IMG_2288

As I write this post I think about all of the kids across not only the Boston area, but across the country, attending awards nights getting scholarships that will help them with the costs of college. Creating many happy parents as well.

As parents we sit in these awards nights and wonder “where does all this money com from?” Imagine if you went to an award night where they gave out almost $590,000 in one setting. Well one happened today. Given the amazing amount of money given out you would think that maybe the press would be curious.

You see today was the 58th Annual Massachusetts AFL-CIO Scholarship Breakfast and indeed all of that money was given out to hundreds of children of union members. Through the hard work of the fundraising of its members their college “Dream” is a little bit more achievable.

I am happy to say that just my union, Plumbers Local 12, was able to give out over 30,000 dollars to our deserving college bound children. These amazing hard working students are headed to community colleges right up to ivy league institutions.

This is just another way that unions give back. As being part of the solution to give access to college we are helping to keep the middle class dream alive. I think we can all agree that the college dream is becoming harder to achieve because of the crushing debt that these young men and woman are being saddled with.

For many of the proud tradesman and tradeswoman in attendance today college was never part of their plan but being able to send their children to college, the dream of having their next generation do a bit better is very rewarding. Totally Amazing Morning.

 

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Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Steve Tolman with the scholarship awardees in attendence today, Good Luck!
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